I don't like your claim because if there was one scum left, it is exactly the claim they would make, and it fed into town's idea that there is a survivor. You are anti-town in your actions. That alone is enough to lynch in my opinion. I can't really see BF as scum because of Bessie's cop result and I haven't seen much scummy from him. I could maybe imagine a BF-Sabrar team. Sabrar is sacrificing himself to take the heat off BoomFrog. I would still rather lynch Sabrar though.

As the sun began to set, Elayne watched on as the six remaining women argued amongst themselves as to who could possibly be a traitor. Another Sister, wearing a blue cloak slipped into the room and sat down beside her.

“The Amyrlin sent me to come and observe things along with you,” Siuan said to the other woman. “I’ve been speaking to her and she suggested that our collective experience in political issues could be combined to assist the council before us, as they appear to be having issues making progress in rooting out the true traitors.”

“You’re rather late then,” the Green Sister replied. “The day’s business is almost over, and there’s still a lot of discussion over what to do. I think they’re leaning towards throwing out the Sister on the right, as another person who doesn’t want to go along with the majority view.

“I’ve been wondering,” she continued, “what is this council actually achieving? The Sisters in it have completely stopped looking for traitors among the general village population, and are entirely focused on attacking each other. I’m somewhat amazed it hasn’t come to blows yet.”

“Indeed. There has been a lot of muttering going around the Aes Sedai that this whole affair is a waste of time,” Siuan responded, stroking her chin. “Some say that it isn’t about finding traitors at all, but about destroying the reputation of certain Sisters. Why else would Egwene have selected people like Romanda to take part? She’s more likely to be someone trying to depose her than somebody who is going to assist in rooting out treachery.”

“I agree,” murmured Elayne thoughtfully.

The two Sisters sat side-by-side for a few moments in silence, as the remaining council members came to a final decision. As they did so, the woman in the centre of the room, and the focus of the group’s attention embraced the source, but was quickly cut off as the other Sisters threw a collective shield around her. In short order, she was picked up in weaves of air and was soon floating out of the room for further interrogation.

The pair of them followed behind, before heading off to find Egwene to report on the latest events.

They found her pouring over a mound of paperwork. It seemed Sheriam still hadn’t recovered fully from her encounter with the drug earlier in the week, so Egwene had been forced to do a lot of the work that her Keeper would normally have done. Elayne recounted what had happened, standing across from the Amyrlin. After she was finished, Siuan chipped in.

“I know I haven’t been all that involved in these discussions, Mother, but if I may be frank, I think you should put a stop to them. They are doing nothing more than drive a wedge between Sisters. I don’t know what we’re really achieving here. Yes, some people are clearly against you, but we knew that already. All this is doing is making that distrust grow, as you are forcing people apart rather than together. Trust me, an Amyrlin needs to unite, not fracture, or the whole society breaks down.”

“Hmmm, yes, I suppose you are right,” mused Egwene. “We are not seeing any true effects, and I’m beginning to think we can realistically search for the Black Ajah like this. They will be too well prepared. Very well. Let us stop this investigation in its current form, before any more damage is done.”

“Actually, I don’t think it’s been a complete loss,” Elayne commented. “I’ve been observing the group, and I think that the remaining women have a unity of purpose about them that could prove useful. Looking at how they acted, I’m confident that they can be trusted with further tasks in the future. That is, if you exclude the one they threw out. I’m confident that when we dig into her belongings, we’ll find something incriminating, after her behaviour.”

“You have a good point. Very well, I will send them each a message thanking them for the service. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have an army to organise.”

Sabrar has been lynched.

Role PM:

Spoiler:

You are Careane Fransi, Aes Sedai of the Green Ajah, but also of the secretive Black Ajah. You have the ability to distract and manipulate people’s conclusions and feelings on who to trust. You have an additional vote, which must be placed during the night. This vote will be anonymous. You may choose to withhold this anonymous vote. Your regular vote may never be placed on the person you are anonymously voting for at that time. Your anonymous vote always loses ties. You may use this pre-game. Please PM the mods the name of your target during the confirmation phase, and each subsequent night. You may remove the anonymous vote at any time, as long as it is at least 12 hours before deadline, but if you do, you will not be able to replace it until the following night. Please PM the mods if you wish to do this. Your vote will not count as removed (and you may not place your regular vote there) until the next mod-posted votals. This does not include end of day votals, so if there are no interim votals between you removing the vote and the end of day post, your anonymous vote will still count. Mods will post votals every 24 hours as a minimum, if required.

Primary Win Condition: You are a Traitor. You win if Town does not win.

Mod-added note: With the death of the other scum, Sabrar inherited a night kill, but only the day following the death of the last other scum. In addition, Sabrar winning would have allowed Vicarin and wam to win.

Secondary Win Condition: Lightning Rod. You win if, on 2 separate nights, you are the most targeted by night actions.

Game Over! With the last non-town member eliminated, it is a Town victory. Congratulations to bessie, BoomFrog, Mark_Cangila, mpolo, moody, LaserGuy, heuristically_alone, and Madge who have all achieved their primary win condition.

Bad luck to Vicarin, wam and Sabrar who have failed in their primary win condition.

You are Min Farshaw. You have the ability of viewings. Each night, you may PM the mods the name of one player. You will be informed of all actions targeting that player that night, but not who performed them. However, if more than two players target your target, your vision will be too confused to get a clear viewing, and you will only be informed of the number of actions targeting that player.Primary Win Condition: You are a member of Town. You win when all threats to the Town have been eliminated, and at least one Town aligned player remains alive.Secondary Win Condition: Infiltrator: During the confirmation phase, you must send the mods your choice of one of the following three players as your target: Mark_Cangila, heuristically_alone, Madge. You win if your choice never votes for you by the end of the game, or if they do, if they are dead before you are.

BoomFrog:

Spoiler:

You are Beonin Marinye, Aes Sedai of the Gray Ajah. If you do not have a vote down at the end of the Day, you may choose to perform one of two actions: roleblock or doctor. Please PM the mods during the night with your choice of action and target.

Primary Win Condition: You are a member of Town. You win when all threats to the Town have been eliminated, and at least one Town aligned player remains alive.

Secondary Win Condition: Ferret: You win if, whilst you are still alive, there is ever a No Lynch, or if the votals are tied at the end of a Day.

bessie:

Spoiler:

You are Aledrin Malenry, Aes Sedai of the White Ajah. Your impeccable logic means you are able to determine a person’s loyalties by studying them for only a short logic. Each night, you may PM the mods the name of a player. You will be informed at the end of the night whether they are Town or non-Town. However, you are somewhat overconfident, and as such, refuse support from other Aes Sedai. Any night you use your ability, if you are targeted with a kill, you will die, even if you are protected by somebody or something.

Primary Win Condition: You are a member of Town. You win when all threats to the Town have been eliminated, and at least one Town aligned player remains alive.

Secondary Win Condition: Helping Hand: Each night, including during the confirmation phase, you may choose a player. You win if that player achieves their secondary win condition during that day or the following night. If the game ends during that time period, you win if that player achieved their win condition at the end of the game.

mpolo:

Spoiler:

You are Moria Karentanis, Aes Sedai of the Blue Ajah (and also of the Black Ajah, although that is not relevant to the game in this case). You have been given discretion to question anybody you see fit. Each night, you may target one player, and place them in a cell for interrogation. This will cause any ability they have to fail, unless it targets you. They will also be immune to any kills during the night. However, you cannot fabricate justification to do it more than once to any person, so you may not target the same player more than once during the game.

Primary Win Condition: You are a member of Town. You win when all threats to the Town have been eliminated, and at least one Town aligned player remains alive.

Secondary Win Condition: Half-jester: You win if at the end of at least two thirds of the Days you are alive for (rounding up), you have at least one vote on yourself, not counting your own, and not get lynched.

Mark_Cangila:

Spoiler:

You are Janya Frende, Aes Sedai of the Brown Ajah. You have the ability to Watch other players. Each night, you may send the mods the name of a player. You will be informed of anybody who targets that player that night. However, you will get noticed constantly watching the same person, and as such cannot target the same player two nights in a row.Primary Win Condition: You are a member of Town. You win when all threats to the Town have been eliminated, and at least one Town aligned player remains alive.Secondary Win Condition: Talkative: You win if at the end of every Day you do not have the lowest word count of all players still alive, including the person just lynched. Note: This word count is measured over all days, so as players die, you will potentially need to increase your word count significantly.

Thank you all for playing, and thank you to dimochka for his help with co-modding. Thoughts etc will be posted later.

Huh, so my objective was mostly made by dimochka. Curse all of you who didn't believe me, I was telling the damn truth

I'd shared most of my thoughts in the spoiler thread after dying, but yeah, Sabrar's traitor role was really, really hard. I was spending D2 going "No Sabrar nooooooooo!" for most of it, but he only knew I was scum at that point, so what can you do. Hilarious as to how Sabrar read BoomFrog as my partner so hard that he was ok with killing wam.

Actually think one of the hardest things for scum here was the way most standard PRs were present in town, but they all had a disadvantage of some kind. Didn't have any indication that the roles would be like that and it almost completely screwed up my claim D1. Also meant we were really bad at claiming in general.

Actually, was also surprised that no-one seemed to bring up the possibility of a scum mentor, as that would have provided a culting mechanic that was limited in scope, and would have believably not wanted to start NKing until it assured the win due to all the roleblocks flying around. It's what I was hoping to bring up as the "actual" situation once BoomFrog got lynched on D3, but that plan fell through. So close.

My flip as a nonspecific faction was as LaserGuy guessed, I realized that if I flipped as Romanda's faction and wam had claimed Romanda, then he was completely and irrevocably screwed, so that got changed into me just flipping as anti-town. Good for some extra paranoia at least.

Vicarin wrote:Huh, so my objective was mostly made by dimochka. Curse all of you who didn't believe me, I was telling the damn truth

I think it was more that you (and wam's) secondary wincons were so outrageously anti-Town that neither of you should have given them even the slightest amount of consideration.

Actually think one of the hardest things for scum here was the way most standard PRs were present in town, but they all had a disadvantage of some kind. Didn't have any indication that the roles would be like that and it almost completely screwed up my claim D1. Also meant we were really bad at claiming in general.

I think you probably would have been okay, actually. Either you fake a restriction that's hard to verify or just don't worry about it. Until there's a mass claim it's not obvious that this is the mechanic in play... especially if you as scum don't point it out and make a big deal out of it

I lucked out by having one of the easiest secondary win conditions, especially since I was pretty town read. I can't believe Sabrar survived as long as he did. Really helped that d1 he played a great town game.

LaserGuy wrote:I think you probably would have been okay, actually. Either you fake a restriction that's hard to verify or just don't worry about it. Until there's a mass claim it's not obvious that this is the mechanic in play... especially if you as scum don't point it out and make a big deal out of it

I thought it was obvious as soon as I'd rolecopped bessie and seen moody's flip Which lead to me trying to add on that machoness to my claim as fast as humanly possible.

And, well, most of the 2nd wincons were pretty anti-town. Actually, I think the most anti-town one was moody's, just because it manages to screw around with watcher and tracker powers when it's getting passed around. Town would be best served by immediately claiming it existing and then making the path of it public knowledge so that the targeting can be worked around.

Congrats to everyone who won. After I missed one day on my vote-collecting secondary condition, I kind of have up on it. At least I ended up going correctly. It is interesting how many secretly Black sisters were involved.

Thank you jimbobmacdoodle, dimochka, and everyone for playing! Shout outs, thoughts, feedback tomorrow, I just got home a little while ago and I want to go through the Gojoe thread and organize my thoughts.

LaserGuy wrote:That is a very difficult variant of the traitor role to play. Sabrar ended up being his own worst enemy for most of the game.

Yeah, I didn't really know what to do here. As some people had guessed earlier, I didn't feel like two scum was enough, but also a third with 11 players or a second faction would likely have been too much, so I went with this compromise. My expectation was that the Traitor would just aim to cause confusion with their voting power, but I had to nerf my original intention, due to the need to make hammer clear, so it didn't work the same. In retrospect, I might have made him fully recruitable, or aware of the whole team rather than just the killer. I even think Godfather might have been interesting, although that's mostly just because of how this game played out. What I wasn't expecting was for both scum to be effectively outed by D3, and leaving the Traitor alive alone.

BoomFrog wrote:@JimBob would Sabrar's vote shown up in the vtotals?

Yes, but anonymously. It needed to be to indicate hammer.

BoomFrog wrote:Funny that me trying to get my tie vote actually might have been dangerous.

At one point, I thought everybody was going to collectively misread the rules and end up with accidental No Lynch because they were trying to give you your win condition. That would have allowed Sabrar to kill bessie, and potentially push for a mislynch of whoever tied up the votals.

In retrospect, I'd have changed a couple of things: 1) switched around the scum abilities so that redirect was paired with the (in this setup) weaker ninja, so that scum didn't lose all their good abilities in one go, and 2) found a way to make the secondary win conditions impact the game more. I decided against making them compulsory, as that would have been hard to balance, but I wonder if I'd strengthened town it could have made more of a difference. It's difficult to know. I think more that actually had a direct game effect like moody's would have worked.

I did think it was funny that Vicarin received his secondary win condition.

heuristically_alone - You played a solid game and made a good clutch call at the end of D2 to lynch scum. A shame you were killed because you were making good contributions.

Sabrar - If it's any consolation, you did catch the entire scum team on D1 That was a difficult role to play and I'm not sure what you could have done better to make it work for you. I suppose I should find it funny that the same tell that you could have used to find me as scum last game (that I townread you for a weird reason) is the one that I should have used to pin you as scum

BoomFrog - I'm going to have to come back to this game sometime later and try to figure out how I was so off on you this time around. Or maybe I'll chalk this up to the mystery of BoomFrog and move on

wam - You guys had a rough go of it I think. Between the blocked kills and the counterclaims and the traitor who ended up working against you and the scummy secondary wincons, I feel like you guys just had a rough start and never really found your footing.

moody7277 - Sorry we lynched you D1

Madge - Sorry I lynched you D4 Cult paranoia got the better of me.

Vicarin - It's your first game as scum, so don't sweat the loss too much. Playing scum is HARD... almost as hard as playing Town .

Unsolicited advice:

Spoiler:

I think what really stood out to me in your content was your reads (here). You really don't have a solid opinion on anyone... everything is hedged. Don't do this. Find reasons to townread people and reasons to scumread then, and if you don't have those reasons, then try to engage those people and generate them. Don't worry about having to Townread someone early in the game then lynch them later... there's nothing wrong (as either alignment) as saying "Well, I was reading them as Town, but then they said A, B, and C which I don't like so now I guess they're probably scum".

The other thing (and again, this is good to do as both alignments, it just is more natural to do it as Town) is to ask questions and then follow up or make a point or a read based on the response you get. Even if you just say "I like that answer, it feels Townie" or something, it still shows that your questions are actually meaningful.

bessie - You played a really stellar game. I'm also really pleased that we seem to be coming to an understanding of how to play Town together as a team rather than getting in each others' way all the time

Mark_Cangila - You had great contributions to the game early on; I was sad to see your content decline as the game went on. Was it just RL stuff? Too much to go through? Is there something that we can help you with so you can stay invested as the game goes on?

mpolo - You played a very solid game and showed your townie card in all the right was at all the right times.

jimbob and dimochka, thanks for modding! Was a very fun game and the flavor was amazing.

jimbob wrote:Yeah, I didn't really know what to do here. As some people had guessed earlier, I didn't feel like two scum was enough, but also a third with 11 players or a second faction would likely have been too much, so I went with this compromise. My expectation was that the Traitor would just aim to cause confusion with their voting power, but I had to nerf my original intention, due to the need to make hammer clear, so it didn't work the same. In retrospect, I might have made him fully recruitable, or aware of the whole team rather than just the killer. I even think Godfather might have been interesting, although that's mostly just because of how this game played out. What I wasn't expecting was for both scum to be effectively outed by D3, and leaving the Traitor alive alone.

I don't think there's anything wrong with traitors per se, and I agree in an 11 player game it's probably a good option. There's a lot of different variants to the role. I think it would have probably been fine to just tell Sabrar who his teammates were right from the start of the game (but not the other way around), so at least they wouldn't be actively getting in each other's way. As far as the abilities are concerned, if you had given Sabrar knowledge of his teammates, then an interesting option would be to move the redirect (or roleblock or even the mediator in this case) to the traitor. Scum isn't as effective at coordinating in the night, but the traitor also has power to cause a lot more havoc.

moody7277- Oops. Yeah, that why I policy don’t vote you on D1. I think you and I understand each other well, it just never seems to translate into working together well. This is an area in which I hope to improve.

Mark_Cangila- You played such a great game. You picked all the right investigation targets, you revealed your results at just the right times. I can see this game overwhelmed you a bit, with school and all. I hope to see you sign up for another game if you can make the time, perhaps the next newbie game, it should have a much lower content level.

mpolo- I’m disappointed that you weren’t around more, as it is to you I often look to late game to draw the flash of insight I need to put all the pieces together. I look forward to the next game when hopefully you will have more time.

heuristically_alone- You’re quite a remarkable person. You always manage to maintain a positive, pleasant attitude, even when you’re under pressure and being scum read, and you never pout or complain or lose it and unload on others. You are an example I should try to emulate more often.

wam- Sorry for needling you like that on D2 but you know better than to challenge my meta when you know I’m town. And you should also know better than to try to avoid a QE when they’re on a 5-Why tunnel.

Vicarin- You managed to take on my meta and make it to day three, I’m quite impressed, and with your performance this game and your wam-level gambit, even more so knowing that you didn’t have day chat. Vicarin, some advice, your overeagerness and anxiousness to know everything right away is something I’ve tormented you over in the past. Try letting the game gradually unfold, it’s not always in town’s best interests to claim, and not necessarily townie to do so, and holding something back is sometimes just good strategy and not scummy.

Madge- I love your plan to try to copy someone else’s meta on D1 of every game, as long as on the other days you remain Madge. Because Madge is the heart and the spirit of the mafia forum, and this would be an empty place without her.

LaserGuy- Have we finally formed an understanding, you and I? Will you be a light to me in dark places, when all other lights go out? I’m really looking forward to testing this in our next game together (and quite disappointed that I don’t see your name in the signups for wam’s game , ah well, you’re going to make me wait).

BoomFrog- I will never really understand the mystery of BoomFrog, and I don’t really want to, because with the mystery comes the magic. Though it is quite frustrating that I always read you as scum, and never know why. Only BoomFrog can have two town cop results and still almost be lynched.

Sabrar- He hasn’t commented on my, um, Gojoe posts, this has given me a bit of anxiety all day as I am concerned that Sabrar is pissed at me. Interesting, my gut told me it was you from D1, but my brain wouldn’t allow me to see it. Your survivor claim was so perfect, and fit my speculation so well.

Sabrar in Gojoe wrote: I was thinking that if I'm wrong about BoomFrog then the most likely candidate for Vicarin's buddy would be wam but I don't think Vicarin would draw attention to a possible link between them early D1. So I'm still under the firm belief that BoomFrog is GF and bessie's love for him is blinding her.

@bessie: you are free to mock me after the game if I'm in error here.

No, it wasn’t my love for BoomFrog that blinded me, not this time. I was 99% certain of the truth from the tone of this post, but something kept me from getting past that final 1%. Playing with decoy Sabrar is disheartening, I look forward to playing with real Sabrar again.

LaserGuy wrote:BoomFrog - I'm going to have to come back to this game sometime later and try to figure out how I was so off on you this time around. Or maybe I'll chalk this up to the mystery of BoomFrog and move on

Ignoring powers, I was the right lynch choice. I had strongly supported wam and Vic for, frankly, weak and vague reasons. Also, whenever we are late in the game and "everyone seems townie" that means it is a very experienced player who is scum. Adding on the "setup doesn't make sense" factor and ignoring powers becomes a good choice. I should have been lynched D4, which is why I wasn't fighting the lynch.

And if you'd just gone ahead and done it I'd have probably gotten my secondary win and town would have still won!

"Everything I need to know about parenting I learned from cooking. Don't be afraid to experiment, and eat your mistakes." - Cronos

@Bessie: By the way, your analysis of my shenanigans was quite encouraging. I guess they are more effective then I thought, but I am still learning how to best interpret the results. But they are generating real and useful content.

bessie wrote:Sabrar- He hasn’t commented on my, um, Gojoe posts, this has given me a bit of anxiety all day as I am concerned that Sabrar is pissed at me. Interesting, my gut told me it was you from D1, but my brain wouldn’t allow me to see it. Your survivor claim was so perfect, and fit my speculation so well.

My little simulacrum of Sabrar says that he is mentally drained by playing in such a tough situation and needs a bit of a break. He is certainly not pissed at you in any way.

"Everything I need to know about parenting I learned from cooking. Don't be afraid to experiment, and eat your mistakes." - Cronos

bessie wrote:LaserGuy- Have we finally formed an understanding, you and I? Will you be a light to me in dark places, when all other lights go out? I’m really looking forward to testing this in our next game together (and quite disappointed that I don’t see your name in the signups for wam’s game , ah well, you’re going to make me wait).

Well, I'm due to roll scum against you any time now, so I can't promise too much But I did find it very enjoyable and productive working with you this game. I'm also kind of pleased that I was able to accidentally help you achieve your secondary.

Sorry, September is a bad month for me as far as RL commitments are concerned and I don't think I will have the time to dedicate to a complex game. I've also actually been meaning to take a little break for awhile but the last few games have been too good to miss

LaserGuy wrote:heuristically_alone - You played a solid game and made a good clutch call at the end of D2 to lynch scum. A shame you were killed because you were making good contributions.

Reading your QTs I think has been the biggest factor in improving my gameplay. But thanks for the shoutout!

bessie wrote:heuristically_alone- You’re quite a remarkable person. You always manage to maintain a positive, pleasant attitude, even when you’re under pressure and being scum read, and you never pout or complain or lose it and unload on others. You are an example I should try to emulate more often

You think more highly of me than I deserve. I'm just too scared to act defensive that it will make me scum read. I'm considering acting overly defensive next game regardless of alignment.

Mark_Cangila wrote:My issue wasn't RL as much as being overwhelmed. I lost track and I couldn't keep up.

I feel that way a lot.

My tips:

- Only read once. Don't re-read, don't go looking for things. Ask people for help/clarification/etc if you missed something. This saves you a lot of time- Sign up to the topic reply notifications on email (do kids these days use email anymore though?), and try to read the posts as they come in, it helps to have ~5 minute reading sessions every few hours than needing to spend 30 minutes catching up on two pages that happened overnight- Try and find something to keep track of. I like to keep track of claims (I make a little "claim table" sometimes), because it helps me get my thoughts together. - Think like you're scum: find someone who does something suspicious and just latch onto them. - Post, even if you have nothing to say. I find that when I'm writing a post I usually end up finding something to say. - If all else fails and you're really struggling, choose another player at random. They're your scum read. Justify it however you like. This gives you a high risk of being voted off.

Otherwise: what do you find fun about mafia? Do more of that. Don't do the boring stuff.

I'm writing a supernatural romance novel, it updates the first weekend of every month. You can find it here.